Amos’s Prophetic Disobedience

Our first president, George Washington, said in his Farewell Address, 

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. . . . Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation [were to] desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice?” ^a

How can we trust the word and life of our fellow citizens, if religion is gone? And what would that do to American prosperity? Washington’s answer was that if religion was gone, we could not expect morality to remain long without it. And thus, “political prosperity” would quickly follow them both out the door.

From the beginning of the United States, religious themes found their way into political discourse. In Thomas Jefferson’s second inaugural address, he said:

“I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life.”^b

Symbolically, Europe was Egypt, America the Promised Land, and the European settlers Israelites. America was to be a “city on a hill” and a “light to the nations,” in the language of the Founders. All of this meant that from its earliest days, America had a “religious dimension” that touched all of its institutions, including its politics, and led to what sociologist Robert Bellah has called a “civil religion.”^c

America’s “civil religion” isn’t a particular religion, per se, but it is a “collection of beliefs, symbols, and rituals with respect to sacred things.”^d It related to God, but it was (or is) something separate. The “civil religion” was intended to hold Americans of various nationalities together as one. Its “sacred scriptures”: the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Its priesthood occupying Capitol Hill. Its creed in the Bill of Rights and Pledge of Allegiance. Events like presidential inaugurations are important ceremonial or liturgical events in this “civil religion.”

But it goes on beyond just our nation’s founding. Whereas at the beginning, language of Exodus from Egypt was a primary theme, by the time of the War Between the States, Lincoln was using “New Testament” language and concepts. In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln described the soldiers who “gave their lives that that nation might live”^e)—a substitutionary and sacrificial death in the vein of St. Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 5:10, among other places.

The American “civil religion” uses biblical archetypes of Exodus, Chosen People, Promised Land, New Jerusalem, sacrificial death, and rebirth. “It has its own prophets and its own martyrs”—such as Lincoln—“its own sacred events and sacred places, its own solemn rituals and symbols.”^f If you doubt this is true, just remember that our current president described the US Capitol as a “sacred place,” and the defense of the right to vote a “sacred effort.”^g)

Now if our “civil religion” borrowed Christian language because we were founded by and large by Christians, we might ask the question, “What happens to the civil religion when our leaders are no predominantly Christian?” I think the answer is that the “religious” language changes. And we are seeing that today. The brave exiles and strangers who, President Lyndon Johnson said, came and “made a covenant with this land…conceived in justice, written in liberty,”^h) are now decried as genocidal colonialists. Just consider “The 1619 Project.” But people today who support an older conception of America—or who support the Christian religion and morality that shaped many of those at the founding—can be called “traitors” and “un-American” because they don’t support the updated version of the American “civil religion.” Those who want older moral ideals of marriage and family upheld are seen as a “threat to democracy.” They are, as it were, “heretics” to the “new and improved,” 21st century version of our “civil religion.”

How do we as Christians interface with the “civil religion” around us? Is it all bad, all good, or somewhere in between? At what point can we take part, and at what point must we stay away? We gain insight into this question from one of the less-known biblical prophets, Amos, who prophesied in the decades prior to the fall and captivity of the northern kingdom of Israel. Israel, too, had a “civil religion,” and in Amos 7:10-17, Amos finds himself at odds with the priesthood of that civil religion, in the person of Amaziah. His response is instructive for us, because what we have here is a clash between Israel’s “civil religion,” and Yahweh’s “true religion.”

There are three speeches in these eight verses: one from Amaziah to Jeroboam (vv 10-11), one from Amaziah to Amos (vv 12-13), and one from Amos to Amaziah (vv 14-17). I’d like to give you a few observations on each, before drawing some connections and conclusions.

AMAZIAH TO JEROBOAM (Amos 7:10-11)

Here are verses 10-11:

“Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, ‘Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, ‘“Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.”’”

The key point here is that Amaziah is the “priest of Bethel.” This isn’t a generic title of a random priest who happened to serve in a random town in Israel. Rather, Amaziah seems to be the key priest in Bethel, perhaps the “High Priest” in Bethel, which is a key town for Israel’s civil religion. 

Two questions are essential for us to understand as we engage much of the Old Testament: 1) Why did the northern and southern kingdoms split in the first place? And 2) Why is Bethel a key locale for the northern kingdom?

Why was Israel split apart? 

The very simple answer given in 1 Kings 11:6 is that, “Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done.” He built temples to the foreign gods of his many wives—temples to Chemosh and Molech. And so, “the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord,” (11:9) and said, “I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant.” (11:11) And this literally happened: Jeroboam the son of Nebat was one of Solomon’s servants, in charge of many of his building projects in Jerusalem (11:26-28). And the Lord gave Jeroboam ten of the tribes of Israel, because of Solomon’s idolatry. 

Why is Bethel a key locale for the northern kingdom?

The answer flows directly from what Jeroboam did after his ascent to the throne of the northern kingdom. I’ve underlined phrases in 1 Kings 12 below, to highlight what Jeroboam himself did: 

“And Jeroboam said in his heart, ‘Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.’ So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, ‘You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’ And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. . . . He also made temples on high places and appointed priests from among all the people, who were not of the Levites. And Jeroboam appointed a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar. So he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made. He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, in the month that he had devised from his own heart. And he instituted a feast for the people of Israel and went up to the altar to make offerings.”

(1 Kings 12:26-33)

Who made the golden calf at Bethel? Who made the temples? Who appointed the priests? Who appointed the feasts? Who made all of these religious decisions? King Jeroboam did. All of the religion of the northern kingdom of Israel was under the king’s design. It was their state religion; their civil religion. And it was a counterfeit religion to that of Yahweh, and Jerusalem, and the priesthood descended from Aaron.

This is what Amaziah represents, in Amos chapter 7. He’s not a biblically-legitimate priest: he’s a priest of the state religion, serving at the behest of the king. He’s a state employee—a “Fed.” The corrupt worship of Israel was a sort of “conjoined twin” with the regime: it was another “branch of government.” When you come against the state, you come against its religion, and when you come against the state religion, you come against the state. Amaziah hears all of this from Amos and takes it to the king—Jeroboam II at this time, no close relation to the first king Jeroboam.

Amaziah tells the king that Amos is a “conspirator.” He’s an “insurrectionist” who is trying to lead a coup against the crown and depose him. Amaziah thinks, “If he keeps going on like this, the common folk are going to get all riled up and we’ll have big problems on our hands. The whole world is liable to go after him!”

AMAZIAH TO AMOS (Amos 7:12-13)

Next, Amaziah comes to Amos, and says: “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there.” This is more than a suggestion: Amaziah is warning Amos that his life is in danger if he keeps doing what he’s doing. He thinks he will convince Amos to leave and go home to Judah by appealing to his love of home, of eating bread in peace, and of being accepted by those who hear him. Amaziah basically says, “You’re in danger here: wouldn’t you be better off going home? You’ll have bread, and your own people will listen to you.” As an aside, these temptations are quite a bit like Satan’s temptations of Christ in the wilderness, which could be the subject of a separate study. Amaziah tempts Amos with bread, authority, and security.

But with our minds on “state religion,” notice what Amaziah says in verse 13: “never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” When you mess with Bethel, you mess with the king. When you mess with Bethel, you mess with the whole country. Worshiping at Bethel was part and parcel of being part of the northern kingdom, and being part of the northern kingdom meant worshiping at Bethel. Amos’s opposing the false worship of Israel at Bethel (cf. Amos 3:14; 4:4-5; 5:4-6) was not merely a religious action: it was a political one, too. Again, attacking the “state religion” was attacking the “state.”

AMOS TO AMAZIAH (Amos 7:14-17)

So we come to Amos’s response. He does two things: first, he gives his credentials, and then second, he acts on them. 

He says to Amaziah,

“I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”

(verses 14-15)

Amos is saying, “I wasn’t born into this. I don’t have a PhD in Prophecy from the University of Beersheba, with a dissertation on ‘A Critical Examination of the Comparative Uses of Thus Says the Lord.’ I didn’t suddenly decide one day that this is what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was a simple farmer. That’s all I ever was, and quite frankly, that’s maybe what I’d still rather be doing if it was all up to me! No, the only reason I’m here is because Yahweh took hold of me, and because Yahweh said, Go and prophesy to Israel. That’s why I’m here. And that’s why I speak as I do.”

Amaziah had warned Amos that only prophets with Federal Prophecy Licenses were allowed to be there, and that he’d also need a permit. And Amos says, “You want to see my license and my permit? My license is ‘Yahweh took hold of me,’ and my permit is ‘Yahweh said go and prophesy to Israel.’”

So he first gives his credentials, then he acts on them. I love the boldness and the sort of reckless, frank, in-your-face response he gives in verses 16-17:

“Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’ Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided up with a measuring line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’”

(verses 16-17)

Amaziah had just said, “Don’t prophesy here, go back to Judah and do it there where you’re allowed.” And Amos throws his shoulders back, sets his jaw, and says, “Don’t prophesy, you say? Well actually, I have a prophecy for you!”

Remember, Amos has just been threatened with his life. The king had been warned that he was a dangerous conspirator; the High Priest of Bethel was telling him to run for his life; he was guilty of committing a capitol crime in the eyes of the state, and he did what was right anyway, because he knew he answered to Someone Higher. He doesn’t tone down his message to Amaziah either: he talks about Amaziah’s wife and kids, and even tells him he’s going to die in a foreign land, and then he doubles down on his message that Israel would go into exile. He doesn’t give an inch. As he said back in Amos 3:8, “The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?” It’s as if he says now, “I can do no other. God has spoken, and I’m bound by Him to tell you about it.”

CONNECTIONS

Now for some connections. We know that the Old Testament’s prophets were constantly running afoul of those in charge. Amos isn’t unique in that. Prophets often made enemies, and it came with the territory. 

Jeremiah found himself in a similar situation when Jerusalem was surrounded by Nebuchadnezzar’s armies. He told those in Jerusalem that they were going to be defeated, that there was no hope, and that even if they defeated the whole Babylonian army until only the wounded were left, yet “they would rise up and burn this city with fire.” (Jeremiah 37:6-10) This got Jeremiah thrown in prison (37:13), because the leaders saw him as colluding with the enemy, aiding and abetting them, demoralizing and destabilizing Jerusalem’s defenders (38:4). The prophet was seen as a propagandist on the payroll of the foreign enemy.

During his ministry, Jesus was on the receiving end of these same things. In Amos’s day, the “state religion” was a corruption of the true religion, and so was first century Judaism. Its scribes and Pharisees were in bed with the government, and had corrupted biblical worship, and because Christ had the audacity to speak the truth to them, they constantly plotted to silence Him.

At the Triumphal Entry, they saw how the huge crowds of ordinary people were shouting and praising Him, and they said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.” (John 12:19)

Amos preached in the temple of Bethel, and likewise, Jesus also preached and taught in the Temple of Jerusalem. Like Amos, He preached against the corrupted “state religion” of Israel. The Gospels are full of His disputes with the Pharisees in the Temple. They tried to trap Him by asking where His authority came from, whether they should pay taxes to Caesar, and so on (Matthew 21-22). And He continuously showed them their error from the Scriptures, and pointed out how they were “devouring widows’ houses” (Luke 20:47), just like the rulers were doing in Amos’s day (Amos 2:6-7; 4:1; 5:11).

Like Amos with Amaziah, the “High Priest” of Bethel, Jesus was questioned by Caiaphas, the High Priest in Jerusalem (Matthew 26:3; John 18:19-24). Pontius Pilate sought to release Jesus, but like Amaziah had done, using his connection to King Jeroboam to get Amos silenced, the Jews said to Pilate, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” (Jn 19:12) Essentially, they said, “This Jesus is an insurrectionist! He’s conspiring against the king! And we also heard Him say He’d destroy the Temple!” (Matthew 26:61)

The Jewish practitioners of the “civil religion” wanted Jesus to stop, but like Amos, Jesus answered to a higher authority. Amos knew that it was Yahweh who told him, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel,” and likewise Christ said, “I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.” (John 8:28)

After His Ascension, Christ’s Apostles continued doing the same thing. Peter and John were preaching in the Temple, and they also found themselves before the High Priest, in Acts 4. And the priests said to each other, in words eerily similar to those of Amaziah, “in order that [this message] may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.” (Acts 4:17) 

Like Amaziah to Amos, they told Peter and John not to speak anymore in the name of Jesus, because that message would cause trouble among the citizenry. Very much like Amos, Peter and John replied, “we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19) And in the next chapter, the same thing happens again, and they famously respond, “We must obey God rather than men.” (5:29) We would be deaf not to hear echoes of Amos in their words!

Everywhere they went, their message was an affront to the “civil religion.” In Philippi, Paul and Silas exorcised a demon from a young slave girl, which enraged her owners, who said, “These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.” (Acts 16:20-21) Their religious activity flew in the face of Roman social expectation.

In Thessalonica, the Jews also formed a mob and arrested them, saying, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, …and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” (Acts 17:6-7) 

In Ephesus, their Gospel message ran contrary to the local industry that made silver idols to the god Artemis. The Ephesian silversmiths knew—like Amaziah knew of Amos’s prophesying—that the Apostolic message would affect their livelihood. So the whole city was thrown into confusion, and they dragged Paul and Silas into the theater, shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:21ff)

And the early Church found herself in the same position. Tertullian’s defense of Christianity to the Roman provincial governors, entitled Apologeticus, and written somewhere around AD 200, makes many similar points. The Christians were in trouble with Rome for not worshiping Caesar as god, but Tertullian argued that they simply couldn’t, because they were under a higher authority. Caesar “gets his sceptre where he first got his humanity; his power where he got the breath of life,”ⁱ namely, from God. 

So Christians could not be part of Rome’s “state religion.” Yet, Tertullian says, they could do something even greater: Christians do not pray to Caesar, but they pray for Caesar. He wrote: 

“I do more than you for [Caesar’s] welfare, …in keeping the majesty of Caesar within due limits, and putting it under the Most High, and making it less than divine, I commend him the more to the favour of Deity, to whom I make him alone inferior… I place him in subjection to one I regard as more glorious than himself. Never will I call the emperor God.” ^j

Further, 

“If it is the fact that men bearing the name of Romans are found to be enemies of Rome, why are we, on the ground that we are regarded as enemies, denied the name of Romans? We may be at once Romans and foes of Rome, when men passing for Romans are discovered to be enemies of their country.” ^k

Tertullian goes on to argue that Christians are better Romans than many “regular” Romans were, because not only are they more peaceful citizens, but because they can offer something better for Caesar than just merely worshiping him as god: they can offer him before the throne of the true King, and entrust Caesar to the Lord of all. What more could he want? What higher civic duty could they perform?

CONCLUSION

Indeed, Amos’s tussle with Amaziah’s “civil religion” is continued on in the Church today, because we, too, serve a higher authority than any human government. Today in America, we run afoul of the establishment when we faithfully preach the truth of the Scriptures. America may have been formed by Christians, or by people heavily informed by Christianity, but even as it has maintained its “civil religion” that uses Christian words like “God” and “justice” and “love,” it has strayed into a new, corrupted form that has lost its old affinity for Christianity. It has lost its Washingtonian desire for “religion and morality” of a Christian sort, as necessary for political prosperity, and thus sees Christians as a danger to its power. It sees the Christian message as an affront to the sacraments of abortion, LGBT issues, and wars around the world. 

And so, we get labeled things like “un-American, homophobe, xenophobe,” and whatever else they can think of. Pandemics roll around and the American “high priests of Bethel” say, “O Christians, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there”—stay in your spiritual lane, stay in your spiritual sphere, get out of ours—“never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom”—physical things belong to the State, so close down church for the greater good. The Church has nothing really to say about how people should live or how things should be run.

What is the message of Amos, as he was confronted by Amaziah? When we are told not to speak the truths of the Scriptures, we can but say, “It’s actually not about us. It’s not our own personal ideas, or our backwoods opinions, that we’re talking about here. We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard. We have seen and heard Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, who became man, and was crucified for us, raised for our justification, who is Lord of all (Romans 10:12), who is over all and in all and through all (Ephesians 4:6), and from him and through him and to him are all things (Romans 11:36). We have seen and heard of Jesus Christ who is a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to us who are called, He is the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:23-24) And so, with all due respect to you, dear leaders, and with our sincere prayers for your wellbeing, we must obey God rather than men. Our Lord Jesus Christ is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and whether it gets us put in chains or thrown to the lions, we will obey Him. You may be able to kill the body, but our God can destroy both body and soul in hell (Matthew 10:28), and it is Him we fear above all else.”

If and when the “high priests” of today’s “civil religion” tell us to no longer prophesy, the Church’s response—with Amos—should be to square the shoulders, set the chin, and boldly declare, “You want us to stop prophesying, do you? Well, here’s a prophecy for you: all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord (Numbers 14:21); every knee shall bow to Christ, and every tongue shall confess Him as Lord (Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10; Isaiah 45:23). You, dear leaders, along with all the rest of us, will stand before the judgment seat of God and give an account of yourself to Him (Romans 14:10-12). And if you have not submitted to Him, you will depart to destruction.”

We must do this humbly, yet boldly, because we know we serve a higher authority: we serve the true religion, are citizens of a higher kingdom (Philippians 3:20), are subjects of a higher Lord. We may confront the “king’s sanctuary”; we may tangle with the “temple of the [earthly] kingdom”; but as He did with Amos, our Lord goes before us. He has given us His calling as a prophetic People, under His Holy Scriptures. And as we follow Him, He will give us the words to speak, and the boldness to speak them.

And ironically perhaps, at least in the world’s eyes, that should also make us better Americans. Because we offer to our nation something greater.

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

1. “Washington’s Farewell Address to the People of the United States,” https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc21/pdf/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc21.pdf (accessed October 11, 2023)   (back)
2. “Thomas Jefferson Second Inaugural Address,” https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau2.asp (accessed October 11, 2023)   (back)
3. Bellah, Robert N. “Civil Religion in America.” Daedalus 96, no. 1 (1967): 1–21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20027022. I am indebted to Bellah’s article for many of the presidential quotes listed here.  (back)
4. Bellah, 8.  (back)
5. Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address Delivered at Gettysburg Pa. Nov. 19th, 1863,” https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.24404500/?st=text (Accessed October 11, 2023  (back)
6. Bellah, 18.  (back)
7. Joe Biden, “Remarks By President Biden to Mark One Year Since the January 6th Deadly Assault on the U.S. Capitol,” https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/01/06/remarks-by-president-biden-to-mark-one-year-since-the-january-6th-deadly-assault-on-the-u-s-capitol/ (Accessed October 11, 2023  (back)
8. “Inaugural Address of Lyndon Baines Johnson,” https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/johnson.asp (Accessed October 11, 2023  (back)
9. Tertullian, “The Apology,” in Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. S. Thelwall, vol. 3, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 42.  (back)
10. Tertullian, 43.  (back)
11. Tertullian, 44.  (back)